Congress walks out of Gujarat Assembly for tribal issues

The discussion on Tribal development and forest rights in Gujarat Assembly election, today led to a walkout by Congress MLAs after heated discussions about the plea to extend the time for further discussions on the issue in hand.

The walkout was staged by Congress after the deputy speaker did not agree to their demand to extend the time to discuss the tribal issues.

When the plea of time extension was made by Congress’ chief whip Balwant Singh Rajput, the Forest, Environment and Tribal development minister of the State Mangu Patel protested granting further time to opposition.

However, the Deputy Speaker Atmaram Parmar was asked by Patel to protect his right to speak before the Assembly members. Denial of Parmar to consider this request led to the slogan shouting by Congress MLAs and a final walk out.

Interestingly,when the walkout was staged by Congress, the leader of the opposition in state assembly Shankarisinh Vaghela and senior leader Shaktisinh Gohil were absent.

“Our whip Balwantsinh Rajput requested to extend the time during discussion as the given time to discuss the tribal development issues was less and we have already made a request about it before the state government and the Deputy Speaker,” Joshiara said.

Joshiara has alleged the state government for its inefficient use of funds for the tribal development department wherein a lot of funds are allocated but the government fails miserably to monitor and spend them.

“There are various issues of tribal development. The state government allocated a fund of Rs 15,000 crore to the tribal development, but has it been used or not. The state government has not been monitoring it,” said Joshiara.

“So many posts are not filled up in the tribal development department, affecting its working,” he said.